Community Capacity - Building and Participation: A Pre – requisite
for Sustaining Governments’ Development Assistance at the Grass Roots.
Government implement policies and
provide public services such as health, education, transport, water, sanitation,
law and order, welfare and social support, and invest in physical
infrastructure and maintenance through the various Ministries, Departments and
Agencies (MDAs).
These
programmes/projects and services are ‘delivered’ to communities as passive recipients
and beneficiaries of government development assistance. The non-inclusion and
non-participation of the local people in the decision – making process and the
government failure to enhance the capacity of the local people to participate
in such project implementation takes the control outside the communities.
Government experts remain in charge of the entire project planning,
implementation, monitoring and evaluation processes. The inability of the
government to consult the local people through community forum/platform means
that community people are not given the opportunity to participate in making
decision with regard to the government’s development assistance. This also
means that community capacity building plan may not be part of the project. Ultimately, communities may be unable to
maintain or sustain such facilities and services when they are delivered to
them.
In their effort to implement various public
interest programmes/projects and services, governments over the years have
failed to consider how to address the capacity of communities to manage or
co-manage their development assistance. To ensure the sustainability of its
development projects, government should begin to adopt a strategy that support
and encourage community management and maintenance of such facilities by
empowering the people and building the capacity of the local communities. It is
through such capacity building effort that local people can gain valuable
skills to promote self-help and self-reliance and ensure community ownership,
maintenance and sustainability of government programmes/projects and facilities
at the community level.
The ‘Top
Down’ approach adopted by government over the years has only solved short term
problems as majority of government services and facilities built in many
communities are not adequately maintained. The “Top Down” approach restricts
community capacity and initiative, disempowers local people, creates the
mentality of dependence on the government, and stifles local leadership and
local organizing. In fact, the outcome of this approach can best be described
as enslavement camouflaged as public service. It is not just unsustainable; it
provides temporary relief in terms of service delivery to the people.
However,
the ‘bottom – up’ approach adopted by social enterprises recognize that
communities are diverse, consisting of a wide range of sectors, institutions,
groups, associations and individuals with differing perceptions and interests,
whose potentials must be harnessed to ensure their full participation in
development. A key strategy is to ensure capacity building and empowerment of
the local community people. It is often said that there is no development
without participation and any approach that will be successful, should
recognize the critical role of the local people themselves in determining their
own development.
While the
‘top down’ approach limits the participation of community networks, the ‘bottom
– up’ strategy supports the building of social and human capacity, encourages community
participation, and the inclusion of diverse range of people including those who
have traditionally been marginalized by the mainstream society in development
effort. Involving the local people in every development process, as well as
improving the capacity of the local people can foster a sense of communal
ownership and sustainability of governments development programmes/projects and
services.
No comments:
Post a Comment